Chapter 24: The Winter Markers

The winter renewal came a year to the day after the night I had signed the form.

Snow fell on the hill in big slow flakes, and the torches along the moon platform hissed.

The pack stood below in their rows, and there were more of them than last year.

Eleven lone wolves from the Wind Valley side had asked to be counted, and the Council had said yes.

I walked up the stone steps in the wolf-crested cloak.

Greta had relined it herself, in plain grey wool, before she left.

The tag inside the collar said nothing but my name.

Mabel rode on my hip in a red wool cap, thirteen months old and furious at the cold.

The silver lock showed under the brim.

Cade stood on the first step with his hand out, and I took it and went up.

"You're late," the old elder said, at the top.

"I was feeding the pups."

"All of them?"

"All forty."

He laughed, which he did more often now.

He lifted the founder's staff out of its iron cradle, and then he did what the law allowed and what I had asked him to do.

He placed it in my hand.

"By the vote of the pack," he said, loud enough for the back rows, "the regent of the heir carries the staff at the renewal."

I held it, and it was heavy and cool, and it did not light.

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